Horses and Guides in the Valley.
For a good horse and saddle the charge is $2.50 a day, or for a trip, if it occupies such part of the day that the animal cannot go out on any other one the same day. If you propose to stay a week or more, and wish to engage the same horse for your regular and exclusive use every day during that time, you can do so for one fifth less; sometimes lower than that.
The horses are good, trusty, serviceable beasts, trained to their business and generally safe and reliable.
Going into or coming out from the valley with any regular trip, over any route, you have nothing to do with providing or paying for a guide. One accompanies the saddle-train each way.
In and about the valley, you can have the company and attention of a practiced and competent guide for $3.00 a day--or, a trip. The guide"s fee is the same whether the party be small or large.
No tourist who has the nerve and muscle of an average man or woman really _needs_ either horse or guide. The valley is only seven miles long and but a mile wide. The perpendicular walls, from three to five thousand feet high, shut you in all around. You certainly can"t get _out_; and with so many prominent landmarks all about you, you can"t get _lost_, unless you try very hard indeed. With a good guide-book before you and well-rested legs under you, a very moderate exercise of common sense will take you all about the valley, and enable you thoroughly to explore its wonders "on foot and alone" if you choose so to go.
Bear in mind, however, that you are nearly a mile--in some places more than a mile--above the sea; that the atmosphere is rare and light; that you need to restrain your impulse to _dash_ about, especially at first. For the first two or three days "go slow"--take it moderately; see _less_ than you think you might, rather than more. As you become more familiar with the character of the rocks and ravines and accustomed to the exertion of climbing about them, you can extend your excursions and attempt harder things.
For the longer trips, such as the ascent of the Sentinel Rock, it may be safer and wiser to employ a good guide.
Expenses.
The total necessary expenses by each route are:
1st. By Big Oak Flat (Hutchings") Route:
From San Francisco to Yosemite Valley, _or_ return $20 From San Francisco to Yosemite _and_ return 38 From San Francisco to the Calaveras Big Trees, _or_ return 10 From San Francisco to the Calaveras Big Trees and Valley, _or_ return 25 From San Francisco to the Calaveras Big Trees and Valley, _and_ return 45
Thomas Houseworth & Co., Agents, 317 and 319 Montgomery street, San Francisco.
2d. By the Coulterville Route:
From San Francisco to Yosemite Valley, _or_ return $20 From San Francisco to Yosemite Valley, _and_ return 38
G. W. Coulter, Agent, 214 Montgomery street, San Francisco.
3d. By Mariposa Route:
From San Francisco to Yosemite Valley, _or_ return $25 From San Francisco to Yosemite Valley, _and_ return 45
Ed. Harrison, Agent, Grand Hotel, San Francisco.
Board and Lodging en route, per day $3 00 Board and Lodging in the Valley, per day 3 00 Board and Lodging at Big Trees, per day 3 00 Board and Lodging in either place, per week 20 00 Horses in Valley, or to Big Trees, per day 2 50 Guides in Valley or to Big Trees, per day 3 00
TOTAL EXPENSES OF EXCURSION.
1. To Yosemite Valley, direct, by Big Oak or Coulterville, stay one week in the Valley, hiring guide and horse three days, and returning by same route $80
2. Above excursion, including Calaveras Big Trees 90
3. To Yosemite Valley direct, by Mariposa, staying a week in the Valley, hiring guide and horse three days, and coming out same way 87
4. Above excursion, including Mariposa Big Trees 93
5. In by Big Oak Flat or Coulterville, and out by Mariposa, or _vice versa_, other conditions as above 87
6. In by Mariposa, and out by Big Oak Flat, visiting _both_ groves of Big Trees, same conditions as above 110
In the above statement the expense for guide is based on the supposition that the party includes at least three persons.
YOSEMITE VALLEY.
The name is Indian. p.r.o.nounce it in four syllables, accenting the second. It means "Big Grizzly Bear."
The valley lies very near the centre of the State, reckoning north and south, about one fifth the way across from east to west, and almost exactly in the middle of the high Sierras which inclose it. Its direction from San Francisco is a little south of east, and its distance about one hundred and forty miles in an air line. The valley itself lies nearly east and west. Its main axis runs a little north of east by a little south of west.
It consists of three parts:
1st. The surrounding wall of solid rock, nearly vertical, and varying in height from one thousand to four and even five thousand feet.
2d. The slope of rocky ma.s.ses and fragments which have fallen from the face of the cliffs, forming a sort of _talus_ or escarpment along the foot of this wall, from seventy-five to three hundred and fifty feet high, throughout the greater part of its extent.
3d. The nearly level bottom land, lying between these slopes, forming the valley proper, and divided into two unequal parts by the Merced River flowing through westerly, from end to end.
The main valley is seven miles long; though one may make it longer if he estimates the branches or divisions at the upper or eastern end.
Its width varies from a few feet on either side of the stream, to a full mile and a quarter in its broadest part. It contains over a thousand acres; two thirds meadow, and the rest a few feet higher, somewhat sandy, gravelly, and, in places, covered with rocks and boulders from the surrounding cliffs. Over the latter portion, at irregular intervals, trees, shrubs and ferns are spa.r.s.ely sprinkled or set in irregular groups. The richer bottom supports several fine clumps and groves of graceful trees.
The bottom of the valley is four thousand feet above the level of the sea, and has an average fall, towards the west, of about six feet to the mile. The river varies in width from fifty to seventy feet, and in depth from six to twelve feet. Its bottom is gravelly, its current remarkably swift, its waters clear as crystal. Trout, of delicious quality, abound, but seldom allow white men to catch them.
The rocky wall which shuts it in, averages over three quarters of a mile in perpendicular height. Nothing on wheels has ever gone up or down this tremendous precipice, and in only two places have the surest-footed horses or mules been able to find a safe trail.
Yosemite Valley is really a huge sink or cleft in a tangle of rock-mountains; a gigantic trough, not scooped or hollowed out from above, but sunk straight down, as if the bottom had dropped plumb toward the centre, leaving both walls so high that if either should fall, its top would reach clear across the valley and crash against the opposite cliff several hundred feet above its base.
In many places these cliffs rise into rock-mountains, or swell into huge mountainous domes, two or three of which have been split squarely in two, or cleft straight down from top to bottom, and the two halves, still standing straight up, have been heaved or thrown a half-mile asunder, whence each looks wistfully across at its old mate, or frowns sternly and gloomily down upon the beautiful valley which quietly keeps them apart.
Here and there they tower into lofty spires, shoot up in shattered or splintered needles, or solemnly stand in stately groups of ma.s.sive turrets. High bastions surmount steep precipices, and both look down on awful chasms.
Back from the edge of the valley, behind these cliffs, the rock country stretches away in every direction through leagues of solid granite, rising irregularly into scattered hills, peaks and mountains, between which run the various snow-fed streams, whose final, sudden plunge over the valley"s sharp and rocky brink makes the numerous falls of such wonderful height.
Coming in by either trail, one enters the western or lower end of the valley. We will suppose ourselves entering by the Mariposa trail. We have clambered, or allowed our animals to clamber, safely down the rocky, steep, and crooked trail, which lands us finally at the foot of the precipitous slope of two thousand seven hundred feet. As we follow the trail up the valley, that is, bearing away to the right, going eastward along the foot of the south wall, we encounter the falls, mountains, spires and domes in the following order:
One coming in by the Coulterville, Hardin"s or Big Oak Flat trail, finds himself at the same end of the valley, directly opposite the foot of the Mariposa trail, having the river between; and as he bears away to the left, along the base of the north wall, he would, of course, meet all these wonders in exactly the reverse order. But to return to the foot of the Mariposa or Clark"s trail:
First, the